At what price?

I am somewhat vain, ok, maybe a little more than "somewhat." I think it might be genetic as my middle brother (not my younger one who couldn't give a shit) is terribly vain. We used to have huge wars over sharing the bathroom when we were kids. Plus who could ever forget his face mask escapades, I mean he spent more time with skin care than I did, used to put this bright blue crap all over his face.

Imagine my reaction when earlier this week I found a furrow in my brow. Honestly I never knew what that word "furrow" even meant until I noticed one on my face and I went, oh, yeah, that's what it means. Yee Gads, it was enormous and I have no idea when it arrived. I know I didn't have it last year; I don't think I had it during the summer and swear it wasn't on my face last month. I am certain it made it's furrowey way onto my face sometime last week. I sort of pride myself on my low wrinkle factor, like I had anything to do with it, a genetic predisposition to wrinkles or not. But I like to think my careful (read obsessive) efforts at skin care have also worked to preserve my skin.

So consider my AF (after furrow) state of mind; I was feeling more than vulnerable when the "Lip Injection" sample arrived in the mail from Nordstrom. Since I couldn't imagine any immediate improvement in the furrow I figured I may as well help my lips. They are on the thin side, always have been, no Angelina pout for me. Aging has not been kind to them and lately I have wondered what I would look like with some modest collagen injection, something controlled, not Goldie Hawn in First Wives Club. So "Lip Injection" sounded like just the thing, "plumps your lips for lasting fullness - without a needle."

We were headed out to dinner and the theater last Thursday night, the perfect time to plump up my lips and take them for a trial run......

"To Use: Apply a generous coat over the entire lip area. You may experience a slightly intense tingle that can last up to 5-10 minutes, but don't worry sweetie, it's so worth it!

Note: Apply only within perimeter of lips. If applied on skin, a temporary redness may occur. If any discomfort is present, remove and discontinue use. "

Oh yeah baby, I could hardly wait as I carefully applied the extremely sticky high gloss gel to my lips. Within about 2 seconds I felt the burning, more than what I would call a tingle, more than what I would consider intense. It was like someone set my lips on fire. I started to breathe faster.........but wait.......look how cute and pink my lips were? Maybe I should hold on for a second because my lips were actually starting to plump up and they were such a pretty natural color plus it looked totally sexy. Did it really matter if it felt like they were covered in acid, oh surely I could tolerate this cause it was likely to stop in say 10 minutes, right? I left it on. Tried to distract myself but I felt the "tingling" spreading around my entire mouth, all the way up to my nose and down my chin. The delightful natural color was not such a good one round my mouth - I looked like a freak show clown.

Shitshitshit, I started to panic and grabbed some soap. The stuff was sticky and insidiously fused to my skin, but I finally got it off. Which is when I really started to panic. I was swollen and red all over the bottom half of my face. Plus it still tingled and hurt. I remembered something about using a high-fat milk product on your face to calm sensitive red skin. I went downstairs to get some half and half. Didn't dare show my face to John, so I just told him I was having a slight beauty emergency. I prepared a little compress of half and half which felt wonderful and was totally soothing. My skin finally started to settle down and the swelling subsided. After careful makeup application I disguised the remaining redness sufficiently to the point that John couldn't tell anything was wrong.

So now I am in the throes of a dilemma. Do I dare try it again, maybe under more controlled circumstances to see what happens? I mean what's a little pain? My lips looked so friggin amazing........